


Rupture

by ScarletAnpan



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
Genre: Angst, Arguing, Blood and Injury, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 08:20:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17138279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarletAnpan/pseuds/ScarletAnpan
Summary: Celestia comes home hurt in the morning. Again. And Kyoko can't take seeing her like this anymore.Based off of the prompt, "What do they argue about?"





	Rupture

6 A.M. The eternal alarm in the detective’s body, formed from constant repetition of work, gently shook her awake. Kyoko blinked, and felt emptiness. She knew she was alone. Even on the days in which Celestia would be found asleep on the couch, or had moved in her sleep so that she untangled herself from the detective, Kyoko could still feel her presence. But it was nowhere. The house was empty, and the darkness felt much colder than usual. Panic set in instantly.

She sat up with a start, and looked about to confirm the truth. Celestia wasn’t in bed. She hardly ever missed coming home by the time Kyoko woke up to get ready for work. There _were_ rare occasions, but it had been so long since the last that the detective couldn’t help but fear. She always feared. Anxiety would penetrate the detective’s thoughts, knowing Celestia were somewhere in the dangers of the city. Cases would rush back into her head. She examined the bodies of dead gamblers in the past, those who were caught tangled in the webs of the undergrounds, who were crushed in the cogs of the corrupt, immoral darkness that swarmed about gambling like a hive of bees, ready for the accident of anyone disrupting it. It was terrifying.

Before she conjured up a plan to approach the situation with, she was in the living room. And she was in the kitchen. And she peered into closets. Every bit of the house was painstakingly searched, in desperate hopes that her own senses failed her, and that Celestia would be found sitting on the couch, reading a book, and would frown at her panicked wife and then find her worry cute. But that scenario never reached fruition, and the detective wondered if her heart would beat out of her chest.

She tried to stay calm. The detective had experience with this. Within thirty minutes, perhaps an hour, Celestia would be back home, exhausted from whatever turn of events stalled her arrival. She would explain tiredly and incoherently at the dining room table, and then accidentally fall asleep there, where Kyoko would shake her awake and lead her to bed before the detective was off to work. So Kyoko imagined the scenario, over and over, as she showered uneasily, brewed coffee shakily, and dressed with a bit of difficulty for work. Once she was exhausted of things to stall her mind, she paced about the kitchen, wondering about a second cup of coffee, before her ears picked up the metal key in the front door. A relief so great washed over her that she almost felt a bit tired. Maybe a second cup wasn’t a bad idea.

The door creaked open, and heels clacked slowly and wobblily against the wooden floor. Kyoko walked out of the kitchen, into the open space of the dining room, and saw Celestia at the front door, leaned against the coat rack, slowly picking at the buckles of her shoes to take off her heels. She didn’t acknowledge Kyoko, absorbed entirely in the task, too exhausted to focus on more than one thing. Once she finished, she sighed and looked up at Kyoko. Her eyes were tinted red, and her face was filled with a discomfort as she smiled weakly. Unknowingly, she bit her lip, her eyebrows upturned in stress, and her eyes gleamed with the beginnings of tears.

“Good morning, sweetheart,” she said, voice rasp with pain. Kyoko would have calmed by now, but Celestia stood before her, standing stiffly, staring at her in some hidden agony. The detective frowned.

“It’s late. What happened?” Kyoko asked, voice flat and emotionless. Celestia saw her tell. Kyoko knew something was wrong, and she was upset.

“Gambling,” Celestia replied easily, brushing off the question as if it were rhetorical. She felt Kyoko’s frown deepen. “Just as the last few times I have been late; things got a bit unpleasant, I suppose I should say.” The detective walked over to Celestia, who stood deadly still and stared straight ahead into Kyoko’s shirt collar. She should have supposed she knew what was coming next. Kyoko glanced her down and very gently grabbed her wrist, turning her palm upwards. Celestia hitched and bit her lip, and Kyoko viewed the mess of dried blood. She did so for the other hand as well. The two stood in silence.

“We should take care of this,” Kyoko said softly. She turned away and Celestia followed.

It was unceremonious work. Once the dried blood and tiny bits of glass were washed away, the series of cuts and gashes, sized various lengths and depths upon her hands, were revealed. Blood seeped out. But Kyoko knew how to stop the bleeding, how to clean the wounds and bandage them. So did Celestia. Celestia would have preferred Kyoko entirely ignore her and allow her to take care of herself. But if the times previous were any indication, the detective wouldn’t let her.

Not only was the work unceremonious, it was also silent. Kyoko often took the liberty of asking Celestia to explain what happened, or at least how the night had gone beforehand. But now it was silent with a quiet that seemed to fill up the room so fully that Celestia felt she could hardly breathe, and thought she would soon drown in it. This silence had no effect on the detective, who reflected it with an aura of thoughts that surrounded her, her presence radiating frustration and sadness and disappointment.

This wasn’t the first instance that a night of gambling hadn’t gone perfectly. Celestia had come home hurt before. Cuts, bruises, scrapes. They were all taken in stride. The detective would swallow the pain of seeing her wife hurt and make sure Celestia was alright, before she gently reminded her to be careful while gambling. Each instance in which the two would sit in their bedroom, Kyoko tending to Celestia, grew quieter and quieter. The pain and anxiety in the heart of the detective grew louder and louder, flushing out all words she had to say. When she saw her wife hurt she couldn’t help but feel the pain herself, which stabbed into her emotional being and widened an unhealed gash. And at the sight of the damage Celestia sustained, Kyoko would suddenly be thrown back into the memories of those bodies… those gamblers, those pawns, those victims. The day she would be awoken in the night with the call of a sudden investigation, and appear at the scene of the crime to see the Queen of Liars, eyes glassed over, still upright in her chair, head titled to the side, blood staining her white shirt and pale skin, would be the last day anything made sense to her.

And so, she wasn’t delicate in her work. She was never rough, she never wanted to hurt Celestia. But she wasn’t gentle, and the alcohol stung and burned painfully on the gambler’s skin. Kyoko didn’t apologize softly or work quickly. She was too upset to think about what she was doing, and Celestia endured the pain and punishment, knowing quietly that she was probably deserving of it. Kyoko finally began to dress the cuts. She retrieved gauze and applied it meticulously. The process was a session of slow torture for the gambler, as she began to realize the depths of her own wounds. They were much worse than normal. It took an eternity for Kyoko to bandage her right hand. And as she almost finished with the left, a voice finally cut through the silence around them.

“…who did you hire?” Kyoko asked quietly. Celestia looked up at her, but Kyoko studied her hand, refusing to return eye contact.

“Hmm?” Kyoko furrowed her brow.

“Taeko, who did you hire? Who did you pay to fail to protect you?” Celestia frowned at the word ‘fail,’ and she heard the venom in Kyoko’s voice. She instantly grew irritated.

“Look Kyoko, I would have suffered much worse had they not been there,” she spat. Kyoko paused as she finished another cut.

“But you don’t pay for people to keep you somewhat safe. You should be unharmed. The next time they ‘protect’ you I’ll find you bleeding out and expect to be thankful you weren’t dead.” Kyoko spoke harshly, and her throat began to hurt. She bit her own lip. She was so scared and so angry, the thought of Celestia hurt like that almost formed tears in her eyes, but she held them back. She just glowered at Celestia’s hands, and the gambler was taken aback. Kyoko never got upset. At least, this upset. In a very quiet sort of way, she was furious.

“Kyoko…” she said, in a gasp, before her voice raised in anger. “What is wrong with you?”

“I just don’t want you hurt, Taeko. These injuries are small, but situations can easily escalate. If you make the wrong move, you could end in a lot more danger than you anticipated.” Something shifted inside of Celestia at Kyoko’s words. Her mentor, reprimanding her, flashed in her mind. The cogs that ticked only when she gambled suddenly came to life, and began to move.

“Make the wrong move?” she repeated in her accent. “You think that you know anything about that?” Kyoko paused, and looked up at her. She frowned, deeper than she thought she could. Celestia stared into her eyes.

“I’m not a gambler but I know what you get yourself into, Taeko. I’m not entirely ignorant.” Kyoko found herself even more angry, so much so that she refused to look away from Celestia.

“Well if you knew, then how could you tell me to just avoid danger? This is gambling, Kyoko. There will always be threats to my existence. I’m the Queen of Liars.”

“I know that,” she grumbled. Kyoko never continued. Her stare faltered, and she finished the last bandage on Celestia’s hand. Neither of them moved for a period, before Kyoko stood up slowly and walked over to their dresser, putting away the first aid equipment. “It isn’t a crime to want you safe,” she murmured, her back to Celestia. “I don’t want to wonder about whether or not you’re alive if you’re home late one morning.”

“I cut my hands, Kyoko,” Celestia mumbled in her natural tone. “That isn’t life-threatening—"

“Stop downplaying this!” Kyoko cried, crushing the roll of gauze in her hand. She turned around, face scrunched red with anger, cheeks burning with thin tears, her eyes red and feral with emotion. “People aren’t out to hurt you, they’re out to kill you! You just barely evaded that and you know it!” Celestia blinked, and almost flinched. “I don’t want to lose you, Taeko!”

“You… you won’t.” Celestia stood up and stared into Kyoko, fists balled. “I know how to protect myself, Kyoko! Do you think I don’t realize people are out for my life? I’ve been gambling for too long to not know how to survive! I’ve been through worse. You of all people should know this!” Kyoko’s hand gripped the dresser behind her, her knuckles turning white under the gloves. She clenched her jaw until it almost hurt, and her brain began to ring with a headache. Whatever force that had held Kyoko back from her feelings creaked and bent, until it snapped clean. Her brain itself shut down, yet she spoke regardless, staved unconscious only by pure emotion.

“That’s nothing to be proud of! If you keep getting hurt, then maybe you shouldn’t be doing something that puts your life in constant danger!” Her last words came out louder than before. They echoed against the wall, and seemed to multiply and repeat themselves in the brain of the gambler. She almost didn’t process them, but once she did, something deep within her shifted again painfully, like rusted gears. Suddenly, she was no longer squabbling with her wife. Her entire existence, Celestia Ludenberg, was being threatened. Taeko Yasuhiro, who knew how to do nothing more than to take on Celestia, would decay without her. She would realize she served no other purpose than to embody her, and that Taeko was nothing from the start. She would disappear—quickly, suddenly, vanish. She would be gone. And that itself was a fate worse than death. She had to defend herself.

“I shouldn’t be doing something that puts my life in danger?” she repeated. “I shouldn’t be gambling? Is that what you meant to say?” Kyoko froze where she stood, and stared at Celestia, as if suddenly aware of herself. Tears began to bridge in the gambler’s eyes. “How… how dare you? How dare you, Kyoko!? You _know_ what gambling is to me! _I-IT’S ALL I HAVE!_ ” Celestia clenched her fists until her nails began to dig into her bandages. Pain shot through all parts of her hands, but she didn’t feel anything. “I thought you of all people would understand that! And… and you want to take it away from me!?” Kyoko shuddered, as she felt sense come back to her. She blinked over and over again at Celestia, seeing her fury, seeing her pain, and seeing blood seep out of her bandages. Panic washed over Kyoko, she hated herself, she hated what she just did, and she was sorrier than she had ever felt. But her brain raced faster than she could compose herself to express that properly.

“I-I… no Taeko, I didn’t mean that I… look, you’re bleeding, we need to redress your—"

“Don’t you dare try to change the subject!” The two went still. Kyoko stared pleadingly into Celestia, whose fury was so great she couldn’t dare see Kyoko’s eyes. “I won’t allow you to try to control me! I’ll gamble even if it kills me!” She grit her teeth and turned around, storming out of the room. Kyoko couldn’t move. She stared at her leaving. It was painful. And it was too late. How could she ever make up for what she had said? How could she ever apologize? Deep within herself, she knew she meant it. Or else she never would have said it. But suddenly, she heard the front door. She ran down the hallway to see Celestia walking out.

“Taeko, w-where are you going?” Celestia looked back to glare at her, and the door slammed shut.


End file.
